I see this as more "teh wimminz are more mature than teh menz" pedestal placing.

In my experience (speaking as a not quite independent man), this

Not so long ago, the average mid-twentysomething had achieved most of adulthood's milestones – high school degree, financial independence, marriage and children. These days, he lingers – happily – in a new hybrid state of semi-hormonal adolescence and responsible self-reliance.

is true for both young men and women.

And the key point is "financial independence" -- it simply is, for various and sundry reasons, very difficult for a twenty-something to be truly financially independent nowadays ... especially if you are seeking graduate education to be in the top of a field in the long run. And with the lack of financial indpenendence comes a lack of independence.

I really have to think about this one, because I used to be afraid of women's power. I don't feel I am anymore. I wish I could explain why most men are so afraid of looking at women as equals.

Truth is, though, I still don't think I know very much yet. I'm still green. I can say that I feel a major source of the "limbo" the article talks about is insecurity, because that's why I did the immature things I've done in my marriage and when it comes to my attitude toward women (which has significantly changed). I could look in despair at what I was and why it took me so long to come to the Age Of Reason (the age I began to identify and align with feminism), but I reckon I'm too busy being anxious about the what the future holds now that I've been gifted with a better understanding. I think I'm moving in the right direction now. I don't think I could have said that a year ago, which would have placed me squarely in the category the article talks about. I can thank my SO for never giving up on me. She saw something in me that I didn't.

hyper-achieving in both school and an increasingly female-friendly workplace, while packing leisure hours with shopping, traveling and dining with friends.

Let's see. I have no job because I couldn't get a job in this shitty economy with my dual bachelor's in International Studies and French. Therefore, I have no income to leisurely shop, travel or dine with friends. If I dine out, it's with my parents because they are kind enough to let me live in their home until I finish my hopefully more useful degree and get the hell out.

I loathe these gender stereotyping articles that attack young men as lazy, drifting or otherwise flawed somehow. And to cite the fact that young women are into "shopping" seems just as bad a generalization as saying that young guys are into video games.

The fact is that males skew all over the place (as do females) and because the economy is so huge today, women are working in record numbers and many don't have to "find themselves" in their 20s just to survive or to support a family, as my father and his father did. In days gone by, men were told by society -- their wives and girlfiends especially -- that they were the breadwinners. Now that they don't need to be the "breadwinners" (and I am thankful for that), we're criticizing them?

Being a man used to be about what you could do - dig coal, mend a car, whatever. Now, most of those working class jobs have gone. Global capitalism found they got done cheaper in China, more profit for the guys at the top - who you can bet are not floating around wondering what to do with themselves at 26 or any other age , too busy working out which bit of the working class to shaft next. No job, no status, no money, no ability to get married. Old model of male breadwinner, wife at home doesn't apply, ( and that upsets some men, of course, and they blame it on feminists, rather than seeing what really causes it) Women doing better ... didn't I read that there was STILL a gender pay gap?

"It's 1965, and you're a 26-year-old white guy. You have a factory job, or maybe you work for an insurance broker. Either way, you're married, probably have been for a few years now; you met your wife in high school, where she was in your sister's class. You've already got one kid, with another on the way. . . . Yup, you're an adult!"

So, the way forward for young men is to become the men of 1965? Yeah, that sounds like a plan! While we're at it, can we get some 1965 women? You know, back when women had several kids by their mid-20s, were married, and rarely went to college. Nothing spells maturity like old fashioned gender roles.

What a vapid article. Does Hymowitz even stop to think how much our economic times have changed? The present requisite to having a decent job is a college degree, and unless you are exceptionally fortunate you need four years of bloated debt and financial reliance on your parents, merited or unmerited according to FAFSA.

And maybe I do not *want* to have children in my 20s, like a lot of women have realized. And if you aren't financially secure, a mortgage or a child is the last goddamn thing I want. Let me start working away on my student loans before I take on MORE debt, please! Then I'll start building up my Roth IRA, and maybe then I'll buy a house. *Maybe*. If it's a good financial decision at the time. As a personal finance junkie, the LAST thing I'd say is a sign of maturity is getting yourself into thousands of dollars of debt because it's somehow a sign of "maturity" according to some women.

Continue to infantilize men and they'll continue to be "child-menz" in your eyes, at least.

I recently graduated college and I've found that my friends, men and women, are all over the place when it comes to "growing up". Some went straight to grad school or careers, living on their own (as I did), others are still figuring stuff out. A lot of it is the function of the economy - if you're making $30k a year, even a two-person income isn't really enough to have kids or think about moving into a house. Settling down just doesn't make financial sense. And yeah, I guess some of my guy friends don't want to commit to a relationship, but I've got female friends who feel the same way, never mind the 23 yos who just got engaged or the 28 yos who just got married. So, basically, I don't know that this article necessarily reflects the complexity of young men AND young women's lives, especially in a society where it's very very difficult to achieve financial or other independence.

Can I point out this is a very classist, racist, and, uh, I don't know... generalized... argument? Sure, she "specifies" white men. Fine. But not all "white men" have enough cash lying around to be what she terms "lazy" -- i.e. owning x-boxes, buying maxims all the time, not worrying about the cost of housing and paying bills.

And I really want to point out that economic, social, educational, and lifestyle changes (including the medical tendency to live longer lives) has lead to both sexes marrying and "growing up" later. Why is this a bad thing again? I totally agree with Parapatetic -- why would we want to move back to 1965? Plus she really glossed over her comparison with women growing up -- the New Girl Order? What is that? And can I point out that she just classified "women" as "girls" -- which perpetually makes them adolescents, too, so I'm really losing her train of thought her.

Guys are the Homer Simpson, the Knockedup Guy, the Family Guy, the slacker, partly because they can.

They can be this way and still get promoted and have a career track through the good ol boy system. In fact, if you're a "fun guy" you can be kinda carried along.

The gal who pops out of college with a 4.0 and does all the right things at entry level still faces increasing resistance. Survival is all about doing it all while still looking good. It's very real. Women are the striving immigrants in the economy. And at home, everything is the mother's fault, so they get it there too. The maintainance of the marriage, the performance and mental health of the kids...all on mom.

Guys get points for "trying" and being "fun" - one of the guys. So the punishments for not being perfect aren't there.

With little boys, they are often held back a grade so they can be taller and older - leaders. Guys don't often do anything where they can't lead. Whereas gals will pick the one thing hard for them and do it. They will pick the one person that dislikes them and make them like them. If their bodies are uncomfortable in their clothes or diet, they take it a step further into discipline, while a guy is okay in jeans and a t-shirt - and not even TIGHT jeans and a TIGHT t-shirt. WOW. What endulgence!

While this article generalizes, it does bring a lot of points that I've grappled with in my post college life, and they are issues that I think don't get really talked about. Sure, it's kind of middle-class white angst, but it's my life, you know? I really identify with what she's talking about.

I honestly think a lot of the difference is how women and men are pressured to have children: women are told they need to have children by about 35, and they need to have their shit together by then. Men are told they can have kids whenever (this is not true; the viability of made fertility degrades at about the same rate as women's fertility, it's just not part of our social common sense).

If you want kids, it really feels like there's a deadline on your life, and that gives me a sense of urgency to start planning and get my life in order. Most of my girl friends are like this; most of my guy friends are not and seem to be sort of meandering through their 20s.

I think the "free" 20s we experience now is completely unique in history (and it's thanks in large part to birth control and the women's movement, I would say) and it's a really interesting phenomenon.

whatever the cause it is something I've noticed a lot of. the absolute strangest phenonmenon was during my time in the military. during work hours or mission time almost all the guys were hyper-competent and focused but the minute we returned home they went into their xbox/ps3 caves and never came out. its an environment where you really can be an 18-year old for 20 or 30 years in a lot of ways.

perhaps courtney is right in citing fear as a reason for this as I see it a lot, a lot of my male friends just dont feel they deserve anything and take what little they are given with no complaint. i know many here will disagree with me on this but a lot of my male friends in their 20's and early 30's just dont demand anything, perhaps thats fear but if thats so its become institutionalized and thats a bad thing.

at the end of the day though it scares me, perhaps this country and this time is different but large numbers of unemployed or underemployed young men who feel, whether its because of fear ot not, that they dont want to "grow up" is a dangerous thing. if i was to base it on personal experience I'd say 80% of my male friends are perpetually unsatisfied and see this as just the way the world works, that they have no right to expect any more.

j7sue, as far as a gender pay gap, well thats an issue debated many times but now we have reports of young women in major cities earning more than men. we already see the effects of this in the black community and the detrimental effect it can have on heterosexual females trying to find compatible partners in their 30's or 40's, they just arent there. (not to compare the experience of all men to black men but simply to say there is a gender pay/education gap between urban black females and males above the poverty line).

I heard about this on npr about a week ago and I was so infuriated I almost called in.

My take is that most of these young men behaving badly are really just full of fear (fear of their authentic selves, fear of growing up, fear of resisting gender norms, fear of women's power etc.)

How does young men not being interested in doing the traditional job -> marriage -> kids thing right away somehow make them "afraid of women" or anti-feminist somehow? How is that they have "not grown up"? When did following the traditional path become the benchmark of maturity? Why is working for man being true to you "authentic self"? And for crying out loud, how is not wanting to be married a "fear of resisting gender norms" - isn't it the exact opposite?

If anything, I'd say taking your damn good time to get married, and being skeptical of creating a kid in a world that's chock full of 'em pretty damn mature.

You can call some of these guys lazy, I suppose, although I'm sure it varies greatly on a case-by-case basis (my single martial status at the ripe old age of 25 is due, among other things, to 12-hour days in the lab). But there's nothing anti-feminist or inherently immature about it.

I'm a little torn on this one too. I agree that she skips over race + class dynamics and leaves out huge issues over economics requiring men and women to wait for children/houses etc. But there is something disturbing about my 25-30 year old male friends. I love them, but while I work full time, pursue a PhD, work out and volunteer, they go to work and then play WoW for 7 hours a night. And then I feel sad because our friendships are strained, as we have less and less to talk about because my life is moving along, and they are sort of stuck. I feel like there is something more going on here than just "immaturity" or "laziness." Maybe fear, as Courtney suggests, but at least one of the men I talk with regularly says that he just "can't deal with all the crap" meaning news of war/politics, injustices, job market, lack of money to travel, etc. So he hides. There is something going on though, in contemporary understandings of masculinity. This is a great discussion topic for the gender studies class I teach.

just another myth that "masculinity" is in crisis.

also, I doubt there's such thing as an "authentic" self. we are always already ourselves.

The best part is liking "true" masculinity with economic power. Doubtful. Dananddanica do the best job of pointing out some of the problems with this approach.

Eh, this just sounds like a bunch of gender stereotypes to me. I'm not "hyper acheiving" in that I don't make six figures and I don't work 50 or 60 hours a week, although I do work full time and have a good job. But this part about young women:

packing leisure hours with shopping, traveling and dining with friends.

I think both this article and your interpretation of it make the mistake of assuming that only men are "putting off adulthood." With respect to romantic relationships, I would agree that men usually hold out longer than women, but it certainly isn't as though women are still achieving all these arbitrary markers of maturity — degree, marriage, kids, house — by their mid-twenties while men are dragging their feet. That I am getting married at the age of 23 is considered an aberration among my female friends, and none of us plan to think about reproducing until we're at least 30. Nor do my female friends in their late twenties own their dwellings, and nor is this really considered unusual for people their age. It is my understanding that it's not considered surprising or strange for a person in his or her late twenties to own or rent — either is seen as fairly normal by peers.

I can only really speak on my own behalf with regard to the reasons for this. I'm not afraid of "growing up" or my "authentic self" — though, admittedly, you only accused men of feeling that way. Rather, I would say that my peers' definition of "adulthood" is different from that of older generations. In the '50s, the American economy was booming, so it was practical for people to get married, have kids, and own houses straight out of high school. It was also possible to get a decent job to pay for all of that with nothing more than a high school diploma. Now, even a bachelor's degree won't get one very far, and between low wages, college debt, and the cost of housing, few of us are in a financial position to own a home by our mid-twenties. Older folks see us as living in a prolonged sort of childhood because of this, but mentally and emotionally we are still growing up — only the signs of it have changed. Adulthood can no longer be accurately defined in financial terms, because financial prosperity does not come hand-in-hand with mental and emotional maturity these days. I'm too young to know, but perhaps this also happened during the economic slump in the '70s?

Also, I agree about it being precarious to glorify the all-consuming ambition women are encouraged to have nowadays. For a long time, I have felt as though our society expects far too much seriousness and industriousness of its "successful" and "grown up" people, especially women, and that this leads to psychological problems and health problems. In this respect, I really appreciate my generation's unhurried attitude toward "growing up" — I feel that we appreciate the need for lightheartedness and relaxation, the need to appreciate life and the world rather than ignoring both to work ourselves into a stupor, much more than the twentysomethings of, say, the rather work-obsessed (at least from my point of view!) '80s.

The writer doesn't speak at all about the jobs these SYM are doing. Just that they "work in a cubicle in a large Chicago financial-services firm".

I'll generalize here and say that most of the guys she's talking about define "growing up" as setting themselves in a career. They remain unmarried and childless for the same reason young women do; they have the flexibility to try a number of different job and work opportunities and they may need to move to another city to find the right fit.

These are difficult decisions to make alone, even more so with a significant other, who is also trying things out.

I think young men sitting around not doing much is often a good thing. After all, Plato's dialogues, the foundation of Western thought, were basically the transcript of conversations of bored, wealthy, but insightful Athenian young men. Nothing wrong with taking a little time to relax in your twenties. You have the next three decades to work your ass off.

I'm a single white male, 26 with a good job, decent pay and because I live with roomates in a low rent house, I've got oodles of disposeable income. I'm also single, play video games as a hobby(among other things) and am very wary of getting into any long term relationships. I feel like the poster child for this article.

My reasons? I've thought a lot about the white picket fence, 2 kids etc thing for a while and I just don't think it's for me. Not yet. Maybe not for a while. I'm having a blast being single, I really appreciate my space, at times. I still don't know if I'm going to live in the city for most of my days or move out to the woods and build my dream eco home. I don't know if I want to say out here on the west coast and make my fortune in the "green" industry or move back east to be closer to my family again.

Basically there's a lot of things that I'm not sure about yet, and I have the luxury of putting off committing to the heavy things until I'm sure that I want them.

There's also a side of me that doesn't want to get married or settle down until I've my exhausted the restless youth in me. I'd hate to be in love with a wonderful woman and be unsure about settling down because I feel like I hadn't been single for long enough.

Anyway. That's me, for any who care. Hopefully I've shed some light on why some people may seem to be spinning their wheels intheir 20's.

My other point is that hopeless addiction to video games is not the sole realm of men. I game, i know male gamers, I know female gamers. The vast minority of male gamers have unhealthy realtionships with games like WoW or everquest, as do the vast minority of female gamers. But some do. There is a support group for people that have lost relationships to an online video game called "Widows of Everquest."

It has plenty of male members.

I've read a few of these types of articles recently. Most of the male commentary on them has been "what's in it for me?" Most men didn't see the point of getting married or having a relationship because they can get everything they want (sex) without it. And they also seem to assume that any marriage will end in divorce leaving them poor because the "psycho bitch" gets everything.

And sadly this is the group of males I am then supposed to find a partner in. I think I'm going to pick up that recommended book.

What I had in my twenties was more of an emotional immaturity. I had the career and fatherhood and all that stuff, but the fact that I was emotionally insensitive, unaware, and immature made me irresponsible - and less of an adult - in my opinion.

The thing that disturbs me most about these sorts of articles is the sheer near-sightedness of them. I'm a mid-20s male who is single, in a low-rent house with some friends, and have plenty of disposable income. I tend to like video games and things with cyborgs and explosions (I also like theater, opera, and symphony orchestras, but apparently these things cannot coexist in this author's world). I get drunk with friends some weekends AND volunteer for political campaigns. The really funny thing, though, is that this article didn't really infuriate me until I read her companion piece about the New Girl Order. She simultaneously excoriates men for taking some time to enjoy themselves and spend a bit of time persuing enjoyment and for not growing up, while simultaneously praising women for their ability to shop and travel as an indicator of their progress.

And her remarks about "bourgeois domesticity" are simply astounding. Apparently, at the same time that she applauds women for their ability to not be tied solely into being a homemaker and baby-birther, she excoriates men for.... avoiding exactly that until they're ready. Can she really be that myopic?

One more thought: I hate to play this card, but in the interest of symmetry, can you for a moment imaging the fallout from the equivalent article about females? "Young women in their twenties are not settling down and getting married and knocking out kids, therefore they're immature, lazy, and delaying adulthood." Egads! Every feminist within 200 miles of this Kay Hymowitz character would be summoned via the feminist bat-call to hunt her down and beat her with her own severed limbs, and I wouldn't blame 'em a bit.

I think Amanda wrote about this last week, and she, and most other feminists who commented, pretty much thought Ms. Hymowitz is batshit crazy. So, to the men who think that we haven't had their backs on this one, fear not.

The article is a lie. It manages to combine all the stereotypes in paragraph form. What about the single young women who like to drink and play Xbox 360? I know I'm not the only one.

And who doesn't like battling cyborgs?!

y'all have addressed just about everything i can think of already about why this is terrible/inaccurate/reductive/absurd.

i'll just reiterate that back in 1960-whatever, getting a HS diploma and starting work immediately at a job you'll have for years and years was actually like, possible. today is different just because the times have changed. college is the new high school--no one i know graduated with a bachelor's and just skipped off to work in their chosen field right away. now that it takes longer to become financially independent (25 for me because i went to law school!), we can't expect young people of either gender to have mortgages and babies and all the other trappings of stereotypical "adulthood" as early as they once did.

i really think that this whole not being put in your box of ticky-tacky at 18-22 is actually progress. guess i'm crazy.

As others have already commented on extreme heteronormativity and rather narrow-minded capitalistic sentiment driving this article (as well as its total lack of historical awareness), I feel like the only thing I'd add is that it's precisely the 1960s gender norms that Hymowitz is so nostalgic for that in large part spawned the youth/countercultural movement of the 60s and 70s... turns out lots of dudes didn't really like the whole suburban picket fence shtick then, either. It really blows me away that folks can still really think that we're having some kind of masculinity crisis-- but then I guess society has pretty obsessed with the wellbeing of bourgeois white heterosexual men.

I am offended by the "all men are boys" shit and I'm equally offended by the "things are so great for women, look they can do whatever they want and shop and their work places love them!" shit. Both points are exactly that, shit.

Jeff and Rileystclaire, I couldn't agree more. Under this silly and illogical idea, I'll NEVER be a "grown up" since I do not believe in marriage and will never have children.

From my perspective, the biggest debt of gratitude I owe to Courtney for posting this condescending, objectifying, and -- dare I say it? – misandrist article is that it gives me a valuable insight as to how many women must feel in having to deal with the constant bombardment of similar misogynistic crap from the mainstream, media, culture, and society. In reading this article, I feel a kinship, empathy and support for women who are on the receiving end of similar ignorant drivel, every friggin’ day of their lives, relentlessly.

I guess I'm not grown-up either. Never wanted to get married, never want kids. I'm a big friggin 44 y.o. baby. Wah!

I honestly think a lot of the difference is how women and men are pressured to have children: women are told they need to have children by about 35, and they need to have their shit together by then. Men are told they can have kids whenever (this is not true; the viability of made fertility degrades at about the same rate as women's fertility, it's just not part of our social common sense).

Thats not true. Studies have shown that older females are linked to far more congenital diseases than older males are.

Its true that sperm viability decreases as men age, but that just decreases the chance of overall pregnancy, it plays no role in increasing the rates of congenital diseases.

Womens' eggs, on the other hand show a different effect. In addition to becoming less viable over time, they also begin to accumulate genetic damage over time that can culminate in diseases such as Downs Syndrome.

While sperm can also have their DNA damaged, its FAR more likely to happen in a woman's egg. The biology of procreation is biased such that female eggs control slightly more of the process than the male sperm does.

The nadir of the article’s stupidity is reached in the following pronouncement: “For whatever reason, adolescence appears to be the young man's default state, proving what anthropologists have discovered in cultures everywhere: It is marriage and children that turn boys into men.�

So unless the poor bastards who are burdened with Y chromosomes marry and reproduce, they are forever relegated to adolescence. Lovely. And way to be completely dismissive of gay men.

The biggest complaint the author seems to have of men in their 20’s seems to be that they don’t measure up to the standards of her and her hyperachieving, shopping, and traveling clique. Proof once again that being superior is a bitch.

MedicalStudent9: It's my understanding that research is starting to change this perception:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/rss/index.php?term=pto-20070830-000004&page=1

"[A]ging sperm can be a significant and sometimes the only cause of severe health and developmental problems in offspring, including autism, schizophrenia, and cancer. The older the father, the higher the risk. But what's truly noteworthy is not that infertility increases with age—to some degree, we've known that all along—but rather that older men who can still conceive may have such damaged sperm that they put their offspring at risk for many types of disorders and disabilities."

Sure it's one article. But I suspect that this is an area that has been lacking in research.

I agree that aging sperm does contribute to genetic problems.

All I'm saying is that its not a 50/50 split between female and male genetic contributions.

I've thought a lot about the white picket fence, 2 kids etc thing for a while and I just don't think it's for me. Not yet. Maybe not for a while. I'm having a blast being single, I really appreciate my space, at times. I still don't know if I'm going to live in the city for most of my days or move out to the woods and build my dream eco home. I don't know if I want to say out here on the west coast and make my fortune in the "green" industry or move back east to be closer to my family again.

But the idea of 2 kids and a white picket fence is such an unbelievably smothering stereotype. There are so many more options than either settling down in your 20s and having kids or simply going to a job you're indifferent to and playing on the internet in between.

I'm 23, and have been with my partner since I was 18. I was not looking for a full-time relationship but that's how it worked out. We have 3 dogs and 6 cats so we might as well have kids. If I ever felt emotionally stable enough I'd like to foster older kids, but I don't want my own for a myriad of reasons.

My partner's in a job he hates since he just kept getting offered promotions and now he spends his days behind on his own work and fixing other people's problems. I'm in a job pretty much for the sake of actually staying in a job for more than a year - I'm also lucky enough to be working in a low level job in the industry I want to continue in, so I can consider my options.

I could keep rambling but my main point is simply that generalisations cover so little of the actual populace that it's ridiculous. There are so many options in life, so many varying factors in individual's lives - sex can be one of them but it's not the decider.

Bah, I'm not sure I made a point but I'm going to post it anyway

P.S. I do not own an XBox or PS because given how ridiculously addicted I am to the internet, reading, and computer games, I don't really need to end up spending all my spare time playing Halo lol